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power blackouts

Having spent some of my formative years on the African continent, I can attest to the fact that the frequency of power blackouts desensitized citizenry to the point that power outages were neither a cause of despair nor excitement but just another mundane facet of everyday life. Power outages remain common phenomena throughout most of sub-Saharan Africa owing to various reasons such as low capacity output, over-reliance on volatile sources of energy, outdated machinery, mismatched pricing, energy theft, low collection rates, among other reasons. Over 30 countries in the continent have suffered power shortages in recent years, with detrimental economic effects including lost revenues, typically ranging between 1 and 4 percent of GDP.